


Etherium Winds

by thenopetrain



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Gen, Treasure Planet!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11861724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain
Summary: She gave up her dreams and left the Interstellar Academy to take care of her father, but Elizabeth Scott finds herself struggling to live a happy, normal life. When a ship crash lands outside her father's Inn, Liz finds herself as the sole protector of a sphere that may be the key to galactic domination.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [windfalling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfalling/gifts).



> Okay so this idea came out of nowhere after reading your request a few times. You can't put Space Opera as an option for me, that's dangerous haha the child in me came alive. I know this first chapter is a lot of exposition and ground work, so I apologize if the pacing is slow. The first two chapters are fairly heavily based on Liz but I promise we'll get to Red soon.  
> Disclaimer: I own neither The Blacklist or Treasure Planet.

"Operating a solar vehicle in a restricted area. Moving violation section fifteen, paragraph..." Donald Ressler glances from the digital note in his hand to the desk top where Liz's ticket was pulsing red for her to see.

"Six." Blunt and impatient, her helpfulness earns her a frown. She offers him a guilty smile.

"It's not funny. This is the second citation you've received in as many weeks, Liz." There was an argument to be made that it was kind of funny, but she lets it go; feeling drained and otherwise ashamed in front of him.

Ressler taps the surface of his desk twice and her holofile flickers up between them; marked with red and blacked out in other places. She stares at it, a sick weight in the pit of her stomach. Beyond the infractions, those classified files, the ones that took her beyond the sorry surface of Montressor out into the greater expanses of space and the galaxies beyond, taint her mood with shadows of dead promises and dreams. Somewhere in the dregs of her galactic history, were classes she never finished and board exams she never took with the Interstellar Academy.

"If you continue down this road..."

"I get it, Ress. Thanks." She reaches through the holo and taps his desk for him. The evidence of how far she's fallen in the eyes of the Galactic Agency vanishes. Liz grips the arms of her chair, prepping herself to leave, and stares at the man she sometimes calls friend when they're not on opposing sides of the law. _Before everything went to hell and I gave it all up_. Bitterness, envy, jealousy...they weren't good shades on her. "Can I go, now?"

Ressler sighs as he leans back into his chair, one hand on the desk, the other braced against the armrest as if he was ready to propel himself up in order to stop her. Liz feels the tension in arms, ignores the way her taut muscles ache with the ferocity of her poise. She just wanted to leave. Staring at one another, she imagines their time at the Academy when she failed, every damn time, to out run him. There's just the barest whisper of competitiveness in his eyes and she wishes she had more to offer him than her impatience.

"Seeing as you won't be getting that Solar Surfer back any time soon, I'll fly you home." He stands and collects his jacket, extending a hand for her to lead the way. Unable to suppress the roll of her eyes, Liz pushes herself up, just a little too forcefully, stalks out of the station, and curtsies when she walks by the sky patrol officers that brought her in that afternoon.

* * *

What does it say about her if she's thirty-years old today and is terrified of what her father will say when she gets back home?

The red, accusing numbers in the display comp of Ressler's air cruiser tell her that she's three hours late for her own birthday party.

"Nervous?" Her hands instantly clasp together and drop to her lap. Her eyes trace the irritated scar tissue on her wrist; following the whorls and circular shapes like a constellation imprinted on her skin. It had been her secret weapon when she was little, listening and playing along to Sam's stories of pirates and space duels; of heroes and explorers out in the galaxies far beyond their own.

She used to make up stories about this scar of hers. _Born with a map imprinted on her skin, the fearsome, bonny Elizabeth swoops in to take names and save the day!_ How paltry those days seemed to her now. The real reason was much sadder and far less hopeful than the ideas that had swarmed her adolescent mind.

Twenty-six years ago, there was a fire she couldn't remember and parents that loved her. There was never the idea of a foster home, of a wonderful, adoptive family, of an ex-privateer raising her, or of failure and disease. There was only the promise of a better future, and it was this echoed promise that had sustained her for nearly all her life. Until recently, that echo had faded, and the light of opportunity seemed a dim and distant determination in her heart.

"I'm three hours late for my own party, what do you think?" There's a small, acquiescent laugh from him, and she finds herself smiling; feeling absurd and guilt ridden all at once. "I'm thirty years old, and today I acted like...like a-" she waves a hand in front of her, searching for a better word than child.

"Like a delinquent teenager?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Aw come on, Scott." She looks over at him when the June Bug Inn comes into view; feeling all the rush of nerves she had felt when she was an unruly teenager. "Your dad's a good man, he'll understand."

"He's great, it's just-" it wasn't the fact that she'd gotten arrested again. It wasn't even that she resented her choices a few years back, because that wasn't entirely true. It was her birthday, and her future, and what she thought she had but never did. "I think I'm letting him down, Ress."

The Inn's port comes into range and there are cruisers, longboats, and skiffs docked along the walkway already; evidence of the friends that remained and those that didn't. Two or three, she recognized immediately, others were more than likely from customers. "I wouldn't trade this extra time I've had with him for the world, but I look up at those stars and I remember all the stories he used to tell me, and I just-" she takes a big, steadying breath, and casts her eyes out across the distance between herself and the June Bug.

The windows were alive with light, and against the red glow of the sunset, the entire Inn looked warm and inviting. There were days that she was happy here, stress free, able to enjoy the simplicity that running the Inn with her father brought. Picturesque...simple...peaceful...she reaches for her desire in those qualities of life and finds those particular emotional wells are running on empty. Ressler parks the cruiser alongside the dock with a gentle rocking as it knocks into the bumper.

"Look," he turns towards her and reaches for her; his grip gentle and reassuring on her forearm, drawing her attention to him once more. "Your annulment came through, you're not married to a dirtbag anymore, Sam's lungs are on the mend, you have family and friends that love and care about you, and it's your birthday." His enthusiasm seemed to grow every time he listed something off, and Liz can feel the uncertain smile on her face waver; a weight pressed into the back of her throat. "Plus...being thirty means I, as an officer of the law, don't have rat you out. Your file is your business, lady."

"Shut up," she laughs, swats at his arm, and unbuckles herself. Hopping out of the cruiser, she helps Ressler up onto the dock as he follows after her. "I'm just gonna say the Surfer broke down, and you came to get me." Ressler gives her a dubious look and she shrugs. It was the best she had, even if lying temporarily to save face was a cheap shot, there was no way she was going to walk in there, three hours late, and announce that she got arrested for reckless flying.  _Again_.

* * *

"ELIZABETH ANDROMEDA SCOTT." Sam's voice bellows from the second floor railing when she enters the Inn. The room is dead quiet, a glass crashes to the floor, and there, in front of her, are her family and friends; sitting morosely around tables near the huge hearth fire Sam had built for the evening.

Liz cringes, and she catches Aram's wide eyes and that slight shake of his head.  _Abort. Abort._  But it's too late, and she feels Ressler slide around her right so he's in the foyer a little more, a muttered, "Good luck," offered in parting as he slinks off towards the main group.  _Traitor_.

Liz looks from the family gathered there near the fire and offers an innocent shrug in their direction. It's about all she's able to do as Sam comes stomping down the stairs to her right, and with one, steeled look from her father, the group goes back to chatting amongst themselves.

"Where in the far reaches of this galaxy have you been, Butterball?" She's engulfed in a hug that's just a little too tight to be angry, and when she draws back, she can see the worry in her father's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he tilts his head, and she offers him a half-baked story of not checking the sail properly before setting out today. "Ress gave me a ride back." As if on queue, the man in question comes up beside her and her father, and offers her a mug of purp juice. Sam and Ressler shake hands, and Liz finds herself being tugged away by her Uncle Jim,

"Elizabeth and I were not done speaking, Jim." Sam's voice behind her makes her wince as she draws her mug up to sip at the juice inside; still warm and pungent.

"You can roast her later, Sammy." Uncle Jim tosses an arm around her shoulders as he leans in, an imperceptible smile on his face.

"Impounded, again?" She nods, and there's laughter in her ear. "Just like your old man, you'll never stop getting into trouble." He toasts her with a mischievous wink and as they drink, her eyes drift back towards the door where Sam and Ressler are still exchanging pleasantries and small talk. She catches her father's eye, and he gives her that worries smile of his that makes her feel guilty again. Distracted by a hand on her shoulder, she turns and Aram wraps her in a hug that nearly makes her spill the purp juice on the back of his waistcoat.

"Happy Birthday, Liz." He's beaming, though she notes there always seems to be something nervous about his smile; like he's waiting for an awkward moment to pop up.

"Thank You, Aram. How's the observatory these days?" She and Aram had the pleasure of growing up together here on Montressor, and while she didn't understand a lick of what he said these days, the astronomer never failed to make her smile.

"It's great! I just installed a new lens that lets me see all the way to the Coral Galaxy." Liz watches her friend delve into the finer aspects of some errant nebula on the fringes of said galaxy, and finds the muscles in her shoulders relax. It's not that her attention drifts, but that she notes the warmth in the room, the light in the smiling faces that greet her and longer as Aram continues to discuss why nebulas require so much babysitting, and she thinks that Ressler was right.

Maybe she didn't need all those things she had wanted. Right now, right here, was enough.

* * *

Almost everyone had gone home for the evening, and the current guests that had been down celebrating with them had wandered up to their respective rooms. Liz was carrying the last four plates to the kitchen where Sam stood at the sink, elbow deep in suds and dishes. He glances at her from the corner of his eye as she sets them on the counter to his right.

"Looks like we have the good doctor and Officer Ressler staying the night." Liz looks back over her shoulder into the dining room and spies Aram snoring in a chair at his usual table, and Ressler wiping down a few of the tables she hadn't cleaned yet.

"Looks like." Liz turns and leans back against the edge of the counter, crosses her arms over her chest, and looks down at her boots. "Dad, about earlier, I'm-" She pauses when Sam sets the dish he'd been cleaning down in the sink and faces her, one arm bracing him against the counter. He makes a motion with his hand for her to continue. A little rattled by the intensity of her father's stare, Liz clenches he jaw before sighing. "I'm sorry I worried you, and that I was late. I should have called."

There's a beat in the conversation, and Liz can hear herself swallow. She doesn't know where this odd sensation comes from; the kind that gets under her skin and makes her restless. It's like moving without going anywhere. Or worse, wanting to run, to fly, and not having anywhere to go. Of all the things she'd given up and lost these last few years, she never expected to lose the peace she found in her own home.

"You sure there's nothin' else you wanna tell me?" Liz doesn't exactly know when he developed this superpower to make her tell him everything that's ever bothered her, but she suspects he's had it all his life, and that it only gets used when she's being stubborn. Because there are tears in her eyes now, and she can feel her lip quiver. He starts to take a step towards her, but Liz wards him off with a raised hand. If he hugs her, if he touches her, she might just burst into tears and start crying, and heaven knows she's done enough of that this past year to last her a lifetime.

"Butterball, are you happy here?" Gentle and knowing, Sam's voice ensconces her and she brings her hand to her face to swipe at the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. There's a mute sort of horror sitting in her gut at the raw answer that pops to the forefront of her mind.  _No._  No, she wasn't happy here. But she wasn't  _un_ happy either.

"Of course, I'm happy." There's a tone that suggests to him how he could ask her such a thing. When she'd left the Academy to come work here again, the place had been in shambles. Debt, roof leaks, painting touch ups, an updated menu, plumbing, electric...she and Sam had worked hard to get this place looking as good as it did now. There's a touch of pride in every corner, in every old stitching of fabric on the chairs or the worn areas on the mantel where Sam would lean his arm sometimes and stare into the fire.

"You were seventeen when I forbade you to join the Academy, and you were seventeen when your grades dropped, and when you had that boyfriend I wanted to kill, and when you got detained three times with that solar surfer I built." Sam leans his hip against the counter and fixes her with a look that softens all the dread and worry and uncertainty for the future that she has stockpiled in her head and heart. "Now you're thirty, and circumstances have... _forbidden_  you to finish your training at the Academy, and you have no interest in starting up your studies again, and you had a husband I wanted to kill, and your solar surfer broke down in the middle of the day." A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips and shines fondly in his eyes.  _He knows._  She knows that he knows. And she thinks she knows who told him. "All I'm saying is I never wanted you to give up your dreams, hon."

It's amazing how quickly she can become frustrated, how easily her regrets bubble up in her like injustice. Liz believes him, she does, but the circumstances of her leaving were out of his control. She did leave. She left to take care of him, to take care of this place.

"Did you think I was just going to leave you to struggle by yourself?" There's derision wedged in her tone, and she wets her lips; a sorrow like anger in the back of her throat. "You were  _dying_ , I didn't give up anything. I had more than enough money to help you pay off any outstanding debt, to help you with your medical expenses. I wanted to be here with you..."

She shakes her head, mulling over all the little arguments they'd had over the last few years since she'd come back. He didn't want to hire a new cook, he didn't want to hire a maid, he absolutely refused to pay for an in-home nurse, he didn't want this, but he wanted that...and then when Tom decided he wasn't cut out to be a husband, that he'd never be able to stop being the bounty hunter he used to be, she'd been so thankful to be here; safe with family.

"Dad, it's not that I don't want to go back, that I have no interest in my studies, I loved my studies...I just pressed... _pause_  on some things, that's all." There was little to nothing that she wouldn't do for Sam. He was her father, the only one she'd ever known, and she wasn't going to throw that love away for some spacer title.

She glances back up at him, aware that her eyes had dropped to the floor, and endeavors to straighten up. Sam regards her with careful, blue eyes, and she wonders what it is he wants to say when he starts to open his mouth a little, only to close it a second later. They descend into a tight silence, and Liz fidgets with the hem of her jacket, rubs her thumb gently over her scar as she waits. Sam lets out a sigh, and tosses his head towards the stairs.

"Okay, I've got this, why don't you head on up to bed?" Liz blinks at her father's, and then nods, approaching him to wrap her arms around his neck and whisper a  _thank you_. As she turns, he wishes her one last Happy Birthday, and then she's gone.

* * *

The roof had always been her escape, but the window was open, and she could hear Ressler and a groggy-sounding Aram talking sideways about her future, and she wishes she couldn't hear them. She wishes it was just the stars above her, and that the night would turn on and on without the pressures of the day to come. But, much like the voices that carry to her, the night would not remain forever.

The stars were glorious as ever, and she longs for the rush of adrenaline she'd found among them, the promise of a challenge, the heart-pounding flight maneuvers in the longboats, learning to man the laser cannons. That was what she was made for. But duty bound her here with her father and her friends, with old memories and even older regrets.

She told herself that separating from Tom had been the wisest decision, that his lies had lingered too close to the vest for her, that the habits he needed to be successful could never give her the singular, abiding love she'd thought they'd had. While she conceded to the fact that her ideals were never fair to place on others, she had expected more from him. She expected more from the man that would have been her husband through thick and thin...in parenthood. And it is the idea that they'd almost adopted a child together that ate at her in moments like this.

Holding her arm up to the sky like she used to as a young girl, Liz looks from her scar to the celestial map above her and remembers pretending that this scar was the missing constellation of the universe; that this pattern had led to riches and worlds beyond even Aram's wildest dreams. There's nothing, of course, having learned and practiced navigating by the stars with Sam's instruction since she was little, and she frowns as the bit of sky above her is blocked by a slow moving thunderstorm.

"One day at a time, Scott." Sighing, she drags herself up to sit with her back against her window sill, watching the lightning flicker through the clouds in the distance. A rumble of thunder crawls across the sky and the sound seems to settle deep in her chest. The wind hits her, and the heavy smell of moisture accompanies it like a warning. A few more minutes and it would be storming like a banshee out here.

A sudden burst of light makes her flinch, and she glances up to watch a strange glow pierce the cloud line before a ship comes careening down towards the dock in the distance. Helplessly, Liz watches it plummet through the sky and crash onto the thin surface of the dock. Sliding down the paneling, Liz launches herself off the roof and lands with a grunt in the grass before she takes off towards the burning wreckage in the distance.

By the time she gets there, the rain is starting to let loose from above, and she approaches the steaming wreckage carefully, eyeing the the destroyed solar panels on the sides as they pop and hiss from the rain. Whatever hit this thing, wasn't messing around. The sound of the cabin depressurizing makes her jump, and Liz steps back as the door is flung open. Smoke pours out of the cabin, and a long, pale arm reaches out to grasp the edge of the space ship for leverage. Liz rushes forward, grabs the arm, and pulls what seems to be a canid alien from within the hold.

"That was some landing," she comments, holding onto him as he coughs and clutches at his side.

"The chest," His voice rattles out of him like dried leaves. Liz settles the slender alien back against the hull of the ship as he winces and swallows hard. "You have to get it."

She leans into the cockpit, waving a hand in front of her face to clear away more of the smoke still billowing up from within. Her eyes sting, and despite the rain, the visibility around the seat wasn't any better than when the man had first opened the door.

"Wedged-wedged under the seat." The soft, ragged exhalation from beside her urges her harried exploration of the cockpit, and Liz reaches for the seat, fingers sliding carefully under it. Her fingers collide with something slightly rounded, and she feels for a handle round the side. The success of finding one feels as cold as the metal, and with a great yank the small chest comes free.

She looks down at the alien as he squints up at her through the rain. His black overcoat, pants, and gray shirt don't immediately give away any injuries, but she knows by the crimson painting his lips, that he's in bad shape. He raises his right arm out to her, and she places the chest in his lap, which he immediately clutches.

"Help me up, quickly." A surge of urgency has her lifting his slighter figure up from the ground, and she supports him with his right arm thrown over his shoulder.

"Is someone coming after you?" The alien gives a ragged cough, and Liz feels her stomach twist when she glances over at him. Blood has begun to seep from the side of his mouth, and his skin is grayer than it had been a moment ago.

"He's after the chest," Strained and breathless, the alien's gaze seems far away. "That fiendish cyborg and his band of cutthroats." He descends into another coughing fit, and Liz has to make him pause so that he doesn't collapse entirely under the weight of his dire state.

"Let's get you indoors before we-" She's cut off as he miraculously gets his feet under him, hoisting the chest up so that he cradles it against his chest.

"But they'll have to pry it from ol' Newton's cold, dead fingers before I let them have it." He gasps in pain, and Liz makes them walk on; casting a quick look to the skies for any sign of trouble as the rain begins to pour.  _Dad's gonna love this._

* * *

It takes them what feels like a lifetime to make it to the front door of the Inn, having supported most of the guy's weight all the way up from the dock as he apparently focused on keeping hold of the chest; his muttering delirium troubled and intrigued her. What she could catch around the pounding rain, sent fear humming through her bones.  _Cyborgs, pirates, the key to a thousand worlds...utter nonesense..._

As she approaches, she can just make out the silhouette of two figures beyond the glass, and she hears Ressler's muted laugh. She hoists the alien's arm around her shoulders a little more, and then reaches up to pound on the door. Silence overcomes the Inn and infiltrates the space around her and the injured alien she's holding up. When the door swings open, Liz finds her father standing across from her, frozen and mouth agape.

"Liz, what-" She pushes her way through the door, and once she's inside, the alien's legs give out, and the two of them tumble to floor. She's panting, and she can hear the wet coughing of the spacer, as a hand comes to rest on her shoulder. Her father is kneeling by her side. She looks over, finds the alien's coat has fallen open to reveal a deadly gash in his left side; a red stain growing by the second.

"Aram," She sits up and glances at him, ignoring Ressler's pointed stare. "There's a medkit in the kitchen under the sink." Liz scoots forward and starts to inspect the wound. The alien's head comes up and he tries to get a look at what she's doing. "We need to stop the bleeding before-"

"There's no time, for all that." Newton's hand grasps her arm, freezing her in place. With great effort, the alien turns her arm over, the rough pad of his thumb brushing the raised scar on her wrist. Muddy brown eyes lift to meet hers, and her heart starts to pound a little harder. There's mercy in his eyes, a hope like light touching his smile as he looks down at her scar once more.

"So it's true...the fates have smiled on me..." Liz yanks her arm away, and the alien's hand drops to the floor again. She glances back at Sam where he kneels beside her and finds a troubled frown knitting his brows.

"Dad?" Liz's quiet question only gets her a slight shake of Sam's head, his jaw clenched as he stares at the alien.

"You have to be quick, they're coming." Newton has turned to the chest, lock clicking as he opens it. A pained sound escapes the back of the canid's throat, and Liz finds a brass sphere being pressed into her hands. The cool, metallic weight of it settles in her grip, and she looks at the circles and lines decorating its surface. Newton suddenly coughs and surges up, his hand grasping the lapel of Liz's jacket. Sam and Ressler are on him in a second, grabbing hold of the alien with separate warnings to calm down. But it is the whisper that Newton leaves in her ear as his eyes roll back and he slumps to the ground.

" _Beware the cyborg..."_


	2. Chapter Two

"Liz what is going on?" Her eyes are riveted to the dead alien before them, and she grips the sphere in her hands a little tighter. Beware the cyborg... Beyond Ressler's question and the sound of her pounding heart, she is aware that her father is gripping her shoulder tightly with his hand. A million questions pop into her mind, but there's no time. A crashing sound from the kitchen catches all of their attention, and with her father's help, Liz stands as Aram comes racing into the room.

"A ship just pulled up!" The roaring of the engines rattles the windows, and Liz shoves the orb in her pocket, turning to her father, to grab onto his arm and usher him towards the stairs. Deep voices can be heard beyond the door behind them, and she hears Ressler's lazer gun click as he flicks the safety off.

"Everyone upstairs, now." The hushed but urgent sound of her voice makes her father move, and Aram leads the way up to the second story. Keeping her father in front of her, Liz gives Ressler's jacket a tug to ensure he's following them across the dining room. No one is getting left behind tonight. Racing up the stairs, she pauses just at the landing, and shoves Ressler foward. Her father is yelling down the hallway to wake the few guests they have, and Ressler makes a grab for her arm when she turns back to peek around the corner.

"Liz, don't-" The sound of windows breaking and fire catching makes her resist, and she's able to fight Ressler enough to watch a few tables light before the front door explode inwards. Dark figures follow the wreckage in, and she gets a glimpse of a fearsome shadow in the night. "Liz, come on!"

They make a break down the hall, and from there it's chaos and desperation. There's smoke, a perilous jump from a window, and a mad dash to Ressler's cruiser before they're safe. And as her father glances back at the burning wreckage of their livelihood, Liz pulls the sphere from her pocket, and she can't shake the feeling that her life just changed forever.

* * *

 

The tall, domed ceiling in the main room of Aram's observatory ate up what little echo their voices had as they discussed the events that brought them here. Sam, having suffered an asthma attack of some sort shortly after they arrived, was seated in one of the high-backed chairs in front of the fire, and Liz was perched on the arm to his left; rubbing his back in soothing circles as he aimed to take deeper breaths. Aram stood somber and pensive on Sam's right, and Liz lifted her eyes to meet his troubled gaze.

"It could be the smoke," He offers the explanation with a little shrug, and she nods. Anger and worry had settled in her gut the moment Sam had been able to get his breathing somewhat under control. He was just getting better, he was on the mend...he couldn't afford this setback.

"I'll be alright," Her father's hand reaches to pat her knee, and she musters a small smile for him when he looks up at her. There's exhaustion in his stare, a dull light in his eyes that reminds her of sorrow. He glances down at her hands, and she can see how his eyes trail to the bulging pocket in her jacket. A wince crosses his face after a moment, and she feels her brows furrow.

"What?" Prying Sam for answers had never been hard, per say, but this was an entirely new level of reticence. Her father shakes his head, gives a helpless shrug. It's then that the sound of Ressler's voice infiltrates the room, and Liz follows her father's stare to where he walks towards them. Ress holds up his communicator to indicate he's finished.

"Just got off the phone with the constabulary." There's regret in his voice, and Liz knows exactly what he's about to say. "Those damned pirates fled into the night, and..." When he looks to her, Liz feels a sudden restlessness, and she stands; her hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket. The cool touch of the sphere injects a bitterness into her heart. "I'm sorry, you guys...but the June Bug Inn's burned to the ground." Liz turns away when Sam coughs out a small, bemused laugh. There was no one to hold accountable. There was no way they could rebuild with what expenses they did have.

"This is a nightmare," The comment is mostly to herself, but she knows they heard her. As she approaches the big bay windows in the back of the room, Liz watches Ressler approach her father in the reflection; the three men cast in the contrasts of firelight and shadows. She can hear his promises to find the pirates responsible, no matter the cost, and part of her enjoys this cutthroat tone of his. It promised retribution.

As they continue to discuss what could be done, as Aram offers to loan them money, Liz takes out the orb, and examines its intricate design. Rubbing a thumb over the smooth surface, she catches the edge of her scar where her sleeve inches up. Her stomach drops. She wedges a finger under her sleeve and pulls the jacket up to her forearm, exposing the full length of her scar so she can hold the sphere next to it; a haunting sense of familiarity she can't place over comes her.

"Maybe that orb is worth something," Ressler's voice rises up behind her, and she presses in on one of the circles in the sphere, listening to the gears within come to life.

"Yeah that's a good idea!" Aram is excited and curious, and Liz ignores all of them; pressing three other circles in accordance with her scar on the orb. She finds one side of the sphere starts to loosen, and she twists; counterclockwise, middle section, right side clockwise. The orb pops open and begins to glow before her eyes. "Hey, Liz can I see tha- woah!"

From within the orb comes a giant holographic map that quickly fills up the room. She steps away from the window, and the map seems to adjust around her; her skin paled in the blue light of the holo.

"It's...It's a-" Aram is studying the planets around him, and Liz can feel a grin spreading across her face.

"It's a map!" She looks to Ressler, whose serious face has relaxed into something close to awe. Liz holds the sphere out for her father to see as he rises unsteadily and comes closer. Sam studies the orb in her hand and then looks to the planet hovering nearest to her.

"This is us," Montressor sits between them, and she watches as Sam reaches out to touch their planet. The instant he does, the map navigates quickly from Montressor and rushes through the universe, past the Coral Galaxy into the beyond, where a planet with two rings comes up front and center. Liz stares in awe at the planet from her childhood stories, the day dream of every young kid imagining adventure and riches.

"Dad, is that-?" She can't quite say it herself. The moment feels too surreal, too unimaginable, too unbelievable. She looks away from the planet before them, and glances between her father and her friends. But it's Ressler who steps forward, and stands next to her.

"That's _Treasure Planet_." The surprising, but completely genuine note of reverence in his voice makes her smirk, and Liz gives him a look. "What?" He crosses his arms, and tries to suppress his grin. "I was a kid once too."

" _Debatable_." She mutters, eyes back on the planet before them, and Aram finally breaks under the weight of his excitement.

"Don't you guys know what this means?!" Liz looks down at the glowing orb in her hand, again. At the scar leading from her palm to the space just beyond the beginning of her wrist. A chill sweeps through her. Of course she knew what it meant. _It means my father lied to me_. The excitement she feels slowly dies as she glances at the edge of her scar. It always meant something. "It means the treasure is only a boat ride away! Whoever brings it back would hold an eternal place..." It was the key to a key. The answer to a riddle, to a mystery. Liz looks over at Sam and finds him looking up at the holo, deep in thought, and she wishes he would look at her. "Atop the pantheon of explorers! They'd be able to experience-"

Liz twists one of the sides of the orb and the map vanishes; all the pieces falling into place. It sits there in her hand as it once had: smooth and impenetrable.

"What-Liz, what did you do?" Aram is looking at her like she'd just taken away his favorite toy, and even Ressler, his arms crossed over his chest, looks disappointed.

"Guys, I need the room." She's watching her father walk away from her, and she can feel the tears gathering in her eyes; hot, heavy, a dull ache in the back of her throat.

When she looks over at Ressler and Aram, they've already gotten the picture. As they head for the door, she watches her father ease himself into the chair he'd been occupying earlier. The soft click of the door shutting spurs her feet to move until she's standing there in front of him, looking over into the fire.

For a few, long minutes they remain in silence. Liz attempts to control the buzzing questions in her brain; head feeling like it's been stuffed full of mysteries and betrayal and deceit. She starts down the dubiously path of her childhood, of her teen years, of odd looks from Sam when certain guests and customers wandered in from their space routes to rest, how he'd send her on an errand during a particularly busy day. The more he lets her think, the angrier, the sadder, the more uncertain she begins to feel about all of it.

"I knew I'd have to tell you one day," Sam leans back into the chair, his head tilted up at her, and Liz can't seem to make herself meet his eyes. "I just thought it would be on my deathbed, or something." Rueful, and just a little sarcastic, she shuts her eyes against the sound of his voice. There was no levity to be found for her.

"I don't even know which question to ask." Floundering, she looks down at the orb in her hand with a frown. It does nothing but reveal a drawn, stretched version of her face in the firelight; reflecting the room around her like a distorted mirror.

"The Procyons had this legend that found its way along the Etherium current," Liz rolls her eyes, and turns to face him, clenching her teeth together as the impulse to yell at him rises. Sam meets her eyes with a heaviness in them that stills her tongue and makes her hold her breath. "When I was working the currents, I heard tell of a mechanism called The Key to a Thousand Worlds, though nobody could ever tell me what it looked like exactly or how it functioned."

She feels her grip on the sphere tighten, and there is the sense that what she holds is the very thing he's telling her about. No matter the idea of what it might be, Liz still feels tense with all the unanswered questions bottled up inside of her; searching in vain for the one question that would unravel the mystery.

"There were tall tales of the descendants from the crew of the notorious Captain Nathaniel Flint, that a long lost great-great-grandchild of the man that betrayed him had suffered at the hands of the Royal Armada, was wanted in all the Terran territories...that this child might know something of Flint's trove...might be able to be used as leverage over the right individuals." The air seems too thin all of a sudden, and Liz finds sweat has formed on her upper lip, a single drop rolling down her back between her shoulder blades. Her heart feels like it's going to pound right through her rib cage and fly from her chest. Or maybe she was just going to be sick.

"I didn't believe a single word of it. I'd always been the kind of man that believed what he experienced, what he saw...and then an old friend showed up on my doorstep, badly injured, begging me to take in a little girl." Sam's sad eyes move from her to the fire, and she watches him as he clears his throat in an attempt to squash the cough that ends up stalling his tale for a few agonizing seconds.

"I don't-I was in an orphanage." Liz's voice sounds fragile to her ears, and she swallows around the sick feeling rising in the back of her throat. "I remember this old woman telling me I was going to meet you...I have actual memories!" Sam winces when she raises her tone, and Liz shoves the sphere back in her pocket so she can cross her arms.

"The Terran Empire is adept at finding suitable ways to help the Queen's sailors through traumatic experiences." He's fighting to say every word, now. She can hear the grinding reluctance in his voice; regret and guilt and sorrow all mixed together like some viscous sound that won't leave his throat.

"The first few weeks...you woke up screaming every time you fell asleep...you wouldn't eat...neither of us we're sleeping...I'd find you staring off at nothing..." There's obvious pain in his voice, a sound grating and unnerving. It was the sound of fear.

She'd read about the tactics of the Royal Armada during her time at the Academy, how their hospitals boasted of cutting-edge technology, how they were the leading scientists and doctors in all fields of medicine, that their dubious history had paved the way from experimentation to actual, life-saving treatments. It was well known the horrors and atrocities that could befall anyone out in space; that a life among the stars might cost you a few things, including your sanity.

"So, what? You hypnotized me? Your replaced my memories?" Sam gives just the barest nod after a moment, and Liz feels like screaming. There was a part of her that said this was ludicrous, that there was no way this soft, gentle man would do that to her; would lie like this. Say the bad thing so the bad thing doesn't happen wasn't working.

"We elected to repress your memories when you started to become violent." His jaw flexes as he clenches his teeth, and Liz just shakes her head; feeling numb and so beyond he scope of reality that she felt as if she were drowning. _Violent_. She didn't even want to know what that meant. The part of her that had always leaned towards aggression frightened her for the simple reason that I thought made her feel good; made her feel vindicated.

"'We'...who is ' _we_ '?" Sam presses his lips together in a hard line and closes his eyes; a helplessness about his demeanor that sets her on edge.

"I can't tell you, Butterball. I-" Sam's face contorts into a slight grimace. A moment later, he starts coughing, his hand pressed against his chest, body hunched forward. Liz, despite everything she's feeling, finds herself kneeling beside the chair, a hand on his back as he collects himself. He sucks in a breath, and Liz is reminded of all the sleepless nights she spent at his bedside watching his chest rise and fall uncertainly; paranoid that he was going to stop breathing if she stopped watching. That same, sallow pallor she saw on his face exists now once again.

"I'm sorry," He pants around the apology, taking in deep gulps of air. Distantly, she thinks that they'll have to call for a doctor soon if this keeps up. The June Bug Inn was burned to the ground, her life has been turned upside down, and her father may need serious medical attention. And though she is worried for him, she feels removed, she feels empty, she feels impossibly full of emotions with no identifiers to help her sort through them.

"Do you know where my scar came from?" It comes out soft, but blunt. He swallows, and Liz watches a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. He shakes his head a little.

"Your arm was bandaged when you were brought to me."

He wont tell her who his friend was, he won't tell her who helped him suppress her memory, he doesn't know where her scar came from. There are more questions, an impossible amount, but she can hear the slight wheeze in his breathing, and there's a thrill of fear in her gut.

"I'll have Aram phone for a doctor." She offers him the reprieve, and begins to stand, her feet carrying her towards the door at the far end of the room. They could discuss it later, she could write down all the things she needed to know...she could let herself cry and rage somewhere alone where no one could be a victim to whatever emotions escaped her.

"Liz," Her father's voice brings her up short of the door, and he's slouched so far back into the cushions that his face is nearly cut in half by shadow. "Get the doctor, and then you need to make plans to leave Montressor."

* * *

 

"What do you wanna do?" It's the only thing Ressler's said she unloaded everything on him. While she'd begun to pace rampantly in front of the door leading into the main room where Aram and a one-eyed doctor were examining her father, Ressler had descended into a contemplative silence that would have made an Arcturian monk proud.

"I don't know," The truth had never felt so annoying. If her father took a turn for the worse, could she really leave him here? Could she leave him alone to fend for himself? To pick up the pieces by himself? It wasn't that he was all alone. They had a family they could rely on. Everyone had pulled together after Aunt June's passing, they'd pulled together when Sam had been sick the first time. She could call Uncle Jim, she could leave him in Aram's good and trustworthy hands. But for what? So she could flee for a little while?

The sound of the knob turning makes both of them look towards the door where Aram appears. There's worry etched into his features, and he tries to give her a reassuring smile.

"He's asking for you," Liz takes a breath as she starts forward, and feels her fists clench. By the time she's through the door, she's managed to school her features enough to talk to the doctor; meeting him halfway to discuss her father's prognosis.

Severe braichial spasms.

Low oxygen levels.

High blood pressure.

"If the wheeze doesn't go away in a few days, you might have to admit him." The alien's eye bears the practiced compassion of someone who's delivered enough bad news in its lifetime. "If his condition worsens, don't call me. Go straight to a medical hub." She nods mutely, her eyes watery, as she thanks him and moves towards her father. When she reaches him again, Liz kneels down in front of him and their hands immediately grasp one another's.

"You need to follow that map, Butterball." It comes rushing out of his mouth, like he doesn't want her to interrupt him; his words breathy and his breathing shallow. "You deserve answers that I can't give you." She grips his hands harder and shakes her head, is about to refuse, say it doesn't matter even though it does. "No, no- _stop_. You need to listen to me." He coughs, and she hates the sound of it as much as she always had; how it drags in her ears and makes her chest hurt.

"I'll be fine, I always am. But you need to do this." Liz can't stop herself from shaking her head, drawing back just a little to really look at him.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin." Hire a ship to take her across the universe to face untold dangers to find a planet that might not actually exist?

"Um, well-" Aram clears his throat, and Liz looks over her shoulder to see him hovering in the shadows near the door. "I might be able to help with that."


	3. Chapter Three

_"Um, well- I might be able to help with that."_

"You can?" Liz stands, her father's hands falling from her own, and she faces her friends as they inch their way through the door.

"I have a feeling I'm not going to like this." She looks down at Sam's muttered reply, his tired eyes watching Aram as if he were a Candarian zaftwing entering the room. Ressler comes a little nearer, making his side known in this fiasco as he stops just a few feet to her right.

"Weeellllll..." Aram reaches a hand up to rub the back of his neck, and Liz folds her arms across her chest. "Remember how my division was flagged for treasonous activity? And, uh, that...message I sent you a year or so after you started training at the Academy?" He'd sent many messages, to be honest. They both had. But there was one that stuck out her second year. She'd just been assigned to work as a trainee war tactician on the  _RLS_   _Wayfarer_  with Admiral Cooper when a distress signal came in through the ship's radar with her code-name and ensign attached to it.

"When you told me you were marooned on a Nova outpost?" Aram's face lights up momentarily, but one glance down at Sam and he's back to looking like he was just scolded.

"Yeah, well, I uh-" Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ressler cross his arms too, a frown on his face. "I was actually on assignment for the Academy, and basically, I was kidnapped, made to hack into the Galactic Bank to transfer five-million doubloons into Etherium currency for some privateers-"

"He means  _pirates_ ," Ressler mutters the comment under his breath and Liz shakes her head slowly as she listens to the rest of Aram's rapid-fire story.

"-And after I proved I wasn't the mole, they had me see if I could trace the source of the leaks by the money for the Academy...I mean...besides the gun to my head thing...it was pretty cool, and I passed with flying colors." Liz opens her mouth at the end, the triumph in Aram's face obvious even if he looks sheepish.

"Flying colors- you told me you were doing battle simulations and were left behind!" She can't believe this. If she wasn't so impressed by the story, she might have been mad, but all she can do is smile.

"It was classified." He says it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Liz looks over at Ressler as if for back up on what to say, and finds a dubious scowl on his face.

"So what you're saying  _is_?" Ressler extracts one of his hands to wave it in a motion that prompts Aram to get to the point.

"They owe him one."

"They owe me one."

Sam and Aram speak in tandem and Liz finds her father leaning forward, the sheen of sweat on his forehead catching in the firelight. He's fixed his blue eyes on Aram the way he used to look at her after one too many tickets flying in unsanctioned airspace.

"Dad?" She watches Sam sigh, and that hint of disapproval he tossed at Aram lingers when he looks up at her. Even after tonight's unveiling of her some of her past and the destiny tied inextricably to her, she doesn't understand this odd tension between her father and her friend. Sam offers her a tired, little smile and shrugs. Whatever grievance he had with Aram's story vanishes.

"There're only a handful of crews that sail through the Etherium who've got contracts with the Terran Empire." Winded and struggling, Liz feels her brow furrows again, and hears Ressler's boots against the carpet as he comes nearer to hear Sam's wavering voice; hovering over her shoulder to look down at her father. "And I know of only one dumb enough to seek the unofficial help of a genius."

While Sam's face falls into a frown as he speaks, there is humor in his tone, and Aram actually looks like he's blushing as he sputters a rebuttal and places his hands on his hips. A moment of silence passes by, and Liz studies her father as he takes a few deep breaths. She knew Sam had a past. She knew that it involved characters who leaned towards the unsavory end of the spectrum. All her life, he'd made it a point to fill her head with dreams, her heart with love, and her spirit with determination.  _All that doesn't just go away because he lied..._ Or did it?

"Get them to meet you tomorrow, Aram. And if they give you the run around, tell them Sam sends his regards."

* * *

_Sam sends his regards._

She'd been going over it in her mind all morning, sick with worry after she'd tried to question her father about how he knew it was this particular crew. He'd been unable to answer her fully after a few refusals; a coughing fit leaving him haggard and near collapse. By the time they moved him upstairs and into bed, Sam had fallen into a fitful sleep, and she'd been forced to call for her Uncle Jim once Aram secured their safe passage away from Montressor.

Ahead of her, Aram wades through the crowd down the portwalk in the most hideous spacesuit she's ever seen, while Ressler seems to endeavor not to piss off every alien bigger than him whose shoulder or arm collides with his own.

It had been six, crazy hours since her Uncle Jim had ushered the three of them out the door to catch their transport to Cresentia. The space port beyond Montressor was boasted as one of the Etherium Current's largest and most profitable trade grounds, and almost anyone could find adventure for the right price. The closer the moment came to dock, the more antsy she had felt, and the more she wished she hadn't left Sam.

Her boots thunk against the boardwalk as she winds her way through the crowd, marveling at everything around her. A short, stout alien whose tentacle hair seems to touch everyone he passes, gets warned off from Ressler as one of the tentacles nearly slaps her in the face.

Business fronts and food stalls sit nearest the shuttle dock for all inter-planetary shuttles, and the different arrays of food cooking fill her nose. Carts with exotic goods and merchandise sit betwixt the foot stalls, their tender's shouting advertisements and haggling with passersby. Liz worms her way through a group of Arcturian school children, a few of their pudgy, amphibian faces scowling at her, and from behind her, Ress groans in agitation.

"Explain to me again how, between the three of us,  _Aram_ , is the one that's cashing in a favor with a crew of privateers and a former Royal Armada Captain..." Liz is trying to piece it all together herself, and she ends up laughing.

"I still haven't wrapped my head around it, either." Honestly, she was beginning to think Aram had seen more action at the Academy than she did. "At least we didn't have to dig through any old contacts."

She still knew of some spacers she could reach out to, but Sam had made it apparent that time was of the essence. It had only been a little over twenty-four hours since she'd found out her entire life had basically been one giant lie, that her father was far, far more than he appeared to be, and that she should probably be on the look-out for a cyborg. To top it off, she was now pushing her way through the throng of species coming and going through space, following Aram towards a ship with a crew he'd whipped out of thin air, to sail to Treasure Planet, and hopefully lay to rest the mystery her life had become.  _No pressure._

"Hey, you doing okay?" Ressler bumps his shoulder into her own as they pass by what appear to be the remains of an old Procyon Mining ship being scrapped for parts. Here and there, the further they got down dock, ginormous dining vessels sit waiting, their windows warm and inviting.  _Sam sends his regards._ Liz shrugs.

"I'm..."  _Fine_ , was what she was going to say, but the word is stuck in her throat. _Beware the cyborg._ "I'm managing." It was best she could offer him. The reality of her situation still hadn't sunk in, and she hoped no one was around when it did. Who was she now? Where was she going to go after this was done? What kind of life could she lead if this map was all her father believed it to be? If  _she_  was everything he believed her to be?

One thing was for certain: she didn't want to live as the great-great-granddaughter of a pirate. And if she found this treasure, she could make sure she never had to. She could buy the June Bug Inn eight times over, buy the medical care Sam deserved, and be able to finish her certification with the Academy.

_A normal, upstanding life._  Nothing to do with scars whose sequence opened an ancient map. Nothing to do with cyborgs and pirates burning her home to the ground. Nothing to do with pirates and the loot of a thousand worlds. Captain Nathaniel Flint and the man that betrayed him could wallow in Davy Jones' Locker for all she cared.

Liz loses sight of Aram for just a moment until she sees him stumbling back a few steps. It looks like he's bumped into a gruff, forearmed alien whose arms are the width of her body, and she picks up the pace a little in case they have to talk their way out of a confrontation, but when she passes the mean-looking alien, Aram has already moved on. Hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder a little more, she takes the lead as she and Ressler trail after the good doctor.

There are so many bodies on the docks, so many moving pieces and parts, that, coupled with the exhaustion she feels deep in every atom of her body, Liz starts to feel smothered. A dining vessel has just extended its ramp, and all manner of species begin to pour out of it down towards them. Ressler grips her shoulder so he doesn't lose her in the crowd, and she looks up at the post to her right to gauge how much further they have to go; absorbing all its directions and the different languages present on it as she finds the number  _fifty-six_  towards the top of the list.

"What's the pier number again?" Her voice is nearly drowned out by the chatter of those around them, and if she weren't using her arms to wade through the crowd heading towards them, she'd have looked, but there was no way to reach the instructions that Aram had given her and Ressler on the off-chance they got split up.

"Seventy-seven." She knows he's found which pier they're passing when she hears him huff in exasperation.

"Great, well, I can't see Adam anymore."

"Seriously? How did you lose him in that suit?"

"I'm shorter than a majority of everyone around us."

"But he's  _bright yellow._ "

Liz rolls her eyes and cranes her neck over and between the throng of bodies milling about the docks. It isn't until a break in the crowd that she sees, and hears, Aram's spacesuit  _thunking_  as he jumps up over the crowd to spot them, one arm lifted to point to a ship just in front of him.

By the time Ressler and Liz push their way through the crowd, they're panting; feeling much like fish having swam upstream. Liz recovers first, lifting her eyes to the near pristine heavy scouter floating above them. She has three masts, the solar sails glimmering as the sun's rays catch across their surface, and if she didn't know better, it was almost like the windows winked at her; for they shined as if they were new. Besides that, it was mostly non-descript, the Royal Navy Jack fluttering in the Etherium winds.

Aram grins at them, and crosses his arms over his chest triumphantly. "Welcome to the  _RLS Polaris."_

* * *

There's only a little bit of trepidation in her stomach as she sets foot on the main deck. Her boots seem louder than she remembers them as she takes a few steps forward; her eyes traveling up the main mast in awe. It had been years since she'd been on a ship of this size, though she'd certainly been on bigger ones as well.

The man-o-war that Admiral Cooper commanded had been a big bellied thing, marvelous but slow. On the rare occasion she'd gotten lost below deck, Liz had wondered how the thing even stayed afloat. But  _this_ , this was a ship she could see herself working on one day. Light and easier to maneuver, there was no way for her to feel trapped.

"Stow those casks forward!" A slight woman, dressed in an officer's uniform shouts out orders here and there to Liz's right. A look closer and she can just see the golden leaf adorning her collar and the stripes and star that label her a Lieutenant Commander.

"Watch it, Liz." Ressler pulls her back to the side as two men come walking by them, lugging a few crates. She grips the banister with one hand as she watches the ragtag group of sailors bustle about. A six-eyed alien pushing a barrel nearly makes poor Aram topple back down the plank. Ressler has pressed himself so close to her, at this point, that she can practically hear him breathing. Once there's a break in the activity, Ressler moves past her towards the woman giving orders.

"Ma'am, my name's Donald Ressler, this," His eyes catch Liz's and she steps up beside him, dodging a laser cannon being rolled down the deck and into position. " _this_ , is Elizabeth Scott." The officer looks down at Ressler's extended hand before a tight smile appears on her face, a primness to her expression as she declines to shake it. Ressler retracts his arm, and there is an immediate frown on his face. The woman's eyes rake over Liz to such a degree that she almost feels inclined to be offended, an odd emotion flashing in the officer's eyes.

"I see." She drags her eyes away from the two of them, hands clasped behind her back. Liz and Ressler exchange looks as the woman turns and watches Aram struggle with some plug or other that he's currently trying to attach to the back of his suit. "Dr. Mojtabai, wonderful to see you... _alive_." Aram freezes mid-struggle, and looks up with a nervous smile on his face. Liz doesn't know if she means it or if she's joking, but it better be the latter.

"Luli!" Aram gives up the struggle with the plug, and the cord snaps back into place on the front of his suit. "I mean- guys, this is-"

"We've been introduced," Luli cuts him off with a wave an arm, and Liz decides she doesn't much like this woman. "I trust you can keep your friends in line until you reach the Captain's stateroom?" Aram nods and Liz finds herself staring the woman down as Luli turns and casts an unimpressed eye over her and Ressler once more.

A grin, that Liz is sure hides daggers, is offered to them a second later, and Liz attempts to take a step forward. Ressler's hand is suddenly gripping her arm to hold her back, and Aram, sensing the tension in the air, has rushed over to push them towards the stairs to their left.

"Through the doors under the stairs, I remember!" His voice is loud as he means for Luli to hear him, and Liz pushes back against the metal front of his spacesuit, attempting to duck under his arm to give her a piece of her mind; Lieutenant Commander or not. Ressler seems to have taken up position behind Aram for such an event, and he effectively blocks her.

"Liz, stop it." He pushes her through the double doors Aram is holding open.

"Stop  _what_?" All the pent up energy she'd tried to throw at the mystery of her life came crashing upon her, frustration and restlessness mixing chaotically. "I'm not gonna hurt her, I just wanna give her a _piece of my mind_." She grinds out the last four words and yanks her arm from Ressler's.

Stumbling back from the force she'd used to free herself, Liz careens straight into a wall of finely tailored clothing, muscle, and amusement. Arms have come around to catch her, and gloved hands attempt, deftly, to steady her on her feet. A smirk plays at the man's lips when she turns her head up to look at him. A rumble of laughter vibrates through her.

"Ms. Scott, what a pleasure."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay to clarify some terms here:
> 
> Terran Empire includes the Interstellar Academy and the Royal Navy - it is ruled, as far as my research into the world of Treasure Planet goes, by Queen Illysa, and is known for its industrial strength and organization.
> 
> The Procyon Expanse - is the technologically advanced and usual enemy of the Terran Empire, but in the last few decades, they have reached an accord and brokered a peace treaty (the Treaty of Gisane) for the Etherium Current.
> 
> The Etherium Current (Procyons call it "The Breath of Ratec") - a remarkable trade route filled with what is called the Etherium Winds, aka oxygen, that connects the Procyon Expanse alllllll the way to the Terran Empire. It connects vast stretches of the universe between the two and is an extremely important trade route to several outlying planets, Procyon and Terran Territories. From Treasure Planet Wikia: It "is a layer of space that contains breathable air, life, and small island like bodies that seem to float among the stars. Below this layer is an airless void, some Spacers don suits to explore, or mine this void though it's fairly certain no life dwells with in."
> 
> Crescentia - the space port just beyond the planet Montressor, built into a crescent moon.
> 
> Heavy Scout - the type of ship most closely resembling the RLS Legacy in the movie Treasure Planet

**Author's Note:**

> credit for some of the lines goes to Disney's Treasure Planet.


End file.
